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| To Pammachius.
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Letter
XLIX. To Pammachius.
Jerome encloses the preceding letter, thanks Pammachius
for his efforts to suppress his treatise “against
Jovinian,” but declares these to be useless, and exhorts him, if
he still has any hesitation in his mind, to turn to the Scriptures and
the commentaries made upon them by Origen and others. Written at the
same time as the preceding letter.
1. Christian modesty sometimes requires us to be silent
even to our friends, and to nurse our humility in peace, where the
renewal of an old friendship would expose us to the charge of
self-seeking. Thus, when you have kept silence I have kept silence too,
and have not cared to remonstrate with you, lest I should be thought
more anxious to conciliate a person of influence than to cultivate a
friend. But, now that it has become a duty to reply to your letter, I
will endeavor always to be beforehand with you, and not so much to
answer your queries as to write independently of them. Thus, if I have
shown my modesty hitherto by silence, I will henceforth show it still
more by coming forward to speak.
2. I quite recognize the kindness and forethought which
have induced you to withdraw from circulation some copies of my work
against Jovinian. Your diligence, however, has been of no avail, for
several people coming from the city have repeatedly read aloud to me
passages which they have come across in Rome. In this province, also,
the books have already been circulated; and, as you have read yourself
in Horace, “Words once uttered cannot be recalled.”1201
I am not so fortunate as are most of the
writers of the day—able, that is, to correct my trifles whenever
I like. When once I have written anything, either my admirers or my
ill-wishers—from different motives, but with equal zeal—sow
my work broadcast among the public; and their language, whether it is
that of eulogy or of criticism, is apt to run to excess.1202
| 1202 See the Preface to
Jerome’s Comm. on Daniel. | They are guided not by the merits of the
piece, but by their own angry feelings. Accordingly, I have done what I
could. I have dedicated to you a defence of the work in question,
feeling sure that when you have read it you will yourself satisfy the
doubts of others on my behalf; or else, if you too turn up your nose at
the task, you will have to explain in some new manner that section of
the apostle1203
in which he discusses virginity and
marriage.
3. I do not speak thus that I may provoke you to write
on the subject yourself—although I know your zeal in the study of
the sacred writings to be greater than my own—but that you may
compel my tormentors to do so. They are educated; in their own eyes no
mean scholars; competent not merely to censure but to instruct me. If
they write on the subject, my view will be the sooner neglected when it
is compared with theirs. Read, I pray you, and diligently consider the
words of the apostle, and you will then see that—with a view to
avoid misrepresentation—I have been much more gentle towards
married persons than he was disposed to be. Origen, Dionysius, Pierius,
Eusebius of Cæsarea, Didymus, Apollinaris, have used great
latitude in the interpretation of this epistle.1204
When Pierius, sifting and expounding the apostle’s meaning, comes
to the words, “I would that all men were even as I
myself,”1205
he makes this
comment upon them: “In saying this Paul plainly preaches
abstinence from marriage.” Is
the fault here mine, or am I responsible for harshness? Compared with
this sentence of Pierius,1206
| 1206 Master of the
catechetical school of Alexandria, 265 a.d.
His writings have perished. His name occurs again in Letter LXX. §
4. | all that I have
ever written is mild indeed. Consult the commentaries of the
above-named writers and take advantage of the Church libraries; you
will then more speedily finish as you would wish the enterprise which
you have so happily begun.1207
| 1207 Ad optata
cæptaque pervenies. |
4. I hear that the hopes of the entire city are centred
in you, and that bishop1208
and people are
agreed in wishing for your exaltation. To be a bishop1209
is much, to deserve to be one is more.
If you read the books of the sixteen prophets1210
| 1210 Thus including
Daniel. | which I have rendered into Latin from the
Hebrew; and if, when you have done so, you express satisfaction with my
labors, the news will encourage me to take out of my desk some other
works now shut up in it. I have lately translated Job into our mother
tongue: you will be able to borrow a copy of it from your cousin, the
saintly Marcella. Read it both in Greek and in Latin, and compare the
old version with my rendering. You will then clearly see that the
difference between them is that between truth and falsehood. Some of my
commentaries upon the twelve prophets I have sent to the reverend
father Domnio, also the four books of Kings—that is, the two
called Samuel and the two called Malâchim.1211
| 1211 The Hebrew word for
“Kings.” |
If you care to read these you will learn for yourself how difficult it
is to understand the Holy Scriptures, and particularly the prophets;
and how through the fault of the translators passages which for the
Jews flow clearly on for us abound with mistakes. Once more, you must
not in my small writings look for any such eloquence as that which for
Christ’s sake you disregard in Cicero. A version made for the use
of the Church, even though it may possess a literary charm, ought to
disguise and avoid it as far as possible; in order that it may not
speak to the idle schools and few disciples of the philosophers, but
may address itself rather to the entire human race.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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